
NASA : Junoon : Ganymede : NASA’s spacecraft Juno sent the first two pictures from space to Earth on June 7, 2021. These photos were obtained during a flyby of Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede. One of these images was taken from the Jupiter orbiter’s JunoCam imager and the other from its Stellar Reference Unit STAR camera. The photos show Ganymede’s surface in full detail, including craters, clearly distinct dark and bright areas, and elongated structural features.

NASA’s Juno has flown closer to Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede than any other spacecraft in more than two decades, offering a dramatic glimpse of the icy orb. Juno Principal Investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said, “This is the closest spacecraft to study Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede in this generation. We would like to study this more before drawing any scientific conclusions.
Find out where Juno is in the Solar System at the moment
In its cylindrical, six-sided body with three giant blades spaced about 66 feet (20 meters) apart, the Juno spacecraft is a dynamic engineering marvel. It orbits around Jupiter in an oval shape.
(Courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Using its green filter, the spacecraft’s JunoCam visible-light imager photographed a large portion of Ganymede’s moon. Imaging experts will be able to produce a color picture of Ganymede later, incorporating the camera’s red and blue filters. In the coming days, the spacecraft will send more images from its Ganymede flyby, adding to JunoCam’s RAW images. its composition from the interaction of a solar-powered spacecraft with the Jovian moon, Mysteries buried in the ionosphere, magnetosphere and ice shell are expected to be uncovered.